I’m skeptical about Roku’s promise of non-”interruptive” ads

Roku, owner of one of the most popular connected TV operating systems in the country, walks a fine line when it comes to advertising. Roku’s OS lives on low-priced smart TVs, streaming sticks, and projectors. To make up the losses from cheaply priced hardware, Roku is dependent on selling advertisements throughout its OS, including screensavers and its home screen.

That business model has pushed Roku to experiment with new ways of showing ads that test users’ tolerance. The company claims that it doesn’t want ads on its platform to be considered intrusive, but there are reasons to be skeptical about Roku’s pledge.

Non-“interruptive” ads

In an interview with The Verge this week, Jordan Rost, Roku’s head of ad marketing, emphasized that Roku tries to only deliver ads that don’t interrupt viewers.

“Advertisers want to be part of a good experience. They don’t want to be interruptive,” he told The Verge.

Rost noted that Roku is always testing new ad formats. Those tests include doing “all of our own A/B testing on the platform” and listening to customer feedback, he added.

“We’re constantly tweaking and trying to figure out what’s going to be helpful for the user experience,” Rost said.

For many streamers, however, ads and a better user experience are contradictory. In fact, for many, the simplest way to improve streaming is fewer ads and a more streamlined access to content. That’s why Apple TV boxes, which doesn’t have integrated ads and is good at combining content from multiple streaming subscriptions, is popular among Ars Technica staff and readers. An aversion to ads is also why millions pay extra for ad-free streaming subscriptions.